


Without His Crown

by littlecloud



Category: Revolution (TV)
Genre: Gen, Prompt Fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-19
Updated: 2013-11-19
Packaged: 2018-01-02 02:52:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1051661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlecloud/pseuds/littlecloud
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Although she knew that he is sad and broken now, sometimes she could look at him and remember how he used to be king – understanding why the people both loved and feared him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Without His Crown

It had surprised her – how much Monroe liked to share secrets. He could remain fairly silent throughout the day, spare commands to make food or find shelter, but once the moon breathed, he’d fall into another personality.   
  
The nights got cold, and he asked once if she would be more comfortable lying beside him to sleep. After she said yes that one time, he never asked again. They just did it. Her on her right side, him on his left, backs together. Then, him holding her from behind. Mumbling his life story into her hair, laughing about the Miles he knew as a teenager, choking on his tongue when he mentioned Emma or Shelley or Cynthia or Angela or any female Charlie was not familiar with. She rolled onto her back, studying his sad, oceanic eyes, sometimes, and let him ask her questions when he had run out of things to disclose about himself.   
  
Neither had known honesty from anyone else, discovered truth through hardship and death and loss and abandonment. That was the unspoken bond between them.   
  
Monroe now knew much of what Miles didn’t, all of what her mother didn’t, the little things that no one else cared to wonder about, not even Jason. Her favorite color was green – the same as his. They both enjoyed being outside, so Charlie told him about the garden she kept back in her small cul-de-sac, an array of weeds inside an otherwise useless automobile. He said he wished she could have seen the tree he would sit under with Miles as a kid, where they devised the Republic’s everlasting emblem.   
  
What she missed about the power was ice cream. What she had wanted to be when she grew up was, she laughed, _I don’t know, an explorer or something._ Her first kiss had been with a girl named Lila, and it was because boys reminded too much of her sickly brother. Her weapon of choice was a bow and arrow. Her favorite letter of the alphabet was N, because it was close to M, but not too much so.   
  
Talking, his elbow propped so his face was over hers, they would pause. They would try not to blink, like some kind of game. Who had the stronger eyes – whose was the deeper shade of blue. And when she won, Monroe would blame on it on his age. It is late, he just wants to sleep, his body can’t run from place to place as it used to.   
  
Then, he would crash, lowering himself next to her again. The unspoken way of telling her it was time to sleep. On the coldest evenings, they would breathe on each other before seeking slumber; their mouths were warm, the mother of humidity and clouds. To anyone else, it would seem weird, but Charlie had gotten into the habit believing it helped her sleep better. Knowing it helped him.   
  
Those were the only nights she did not see something break in him, barely visible beneath the stars. He usually gave a quivering sigh, pattern remnant of veins under skin, and a look too empty to be full of anything but sorrow.   
  
The mornings were different; he would wake her up harshly at dawn, fire sentient for breakfast too near to her face. Monroe would hardly share his eating utensils, Charlie usually having to eat with her fingers and wipe dried food on her pants at his encouragement. He would run fast and hard, mocking her if she couldn’t keep up. He tried to train her in using a sword, but insisted she was not the type to ever succeed at it.   
  
Although she knew that he is sad and broken now, sometimes she could look at him and remember how he used to be king – understanding why the people both loved and feared him. The best survival instincts she’d seen, and he had no desire to use them. Observing him without his knowledge, when he was believed to be alone, she could never tell what he was thinking. About killing or being killed. Love or loss. But Charlie could always ask him later that night, and he would tell her, as a man without his crown.


End file.
